(Newser)
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A California mother who let her two young kids miss a huge chunk of school last year for no good reason is paying the price in jail. Lorraine Cuevas, 34, already has begun serving her 180-day sentence for violating the state's truancy law, reports KMPH. Kings County school officials say she ignored repeated warnings as her kids missed a combined 116 days, more than the 10% allowed under the law. The kids have good attendance so far this year with their mom in jail. Cuevas is at least the second parent jailed in the last two years on the charge in Kings County.

"It's a process that takes months to get to this point," says the local school superintendent. "On average we're making 15 to 20 calls in dealing with these issues."

wait- didn't GW miss more than 116 days of work? We should jail his mom!

fractal

Oct 4, 2012 12:51 AM CDT

When my child was in grade school, I often took her out of school to go to special activities and experiences. We went to plays, botanical gardens, yoga for kids, museums, fishing, buddhist monk sand painting, horseback riding, concerts, kite flying and to the tall grass prairie---to name a few. I did this for several reasons. Her school spent much of its time teaching to the slow students, and herding kids around. I was a single mom working a part and full time job, without much time to spend with her. She was never going to get a chance to do a lot of this stuff if I didn't grab the time when I had it. I made it clear to the school that I was raising a renaissance child, and that they should stay out of my way if they couldn't give her this kind of enrichment. Of course, they called family services. I showed them my child's report cards with its top grades, and her testing scores, that showed her in the top three percent of her school district. Next I showed them the ticket stubs of where we had gone. Finally, I then showed them my degrees. Social services agreed with me. Really, the school just wanted the money that they could not collect if she was not in class. But they had to drop it, and we spent some quality time bonding while she was being exposed to the better things in life.

winterfairy

Oct 3, 2012 11:09 PM CDT

The kids are better off out of school away from the drugs, violence and gangs. But at least the schools are gun free.